


Iconoclasm

by rednihilist



Series: Colin Luthor 'Verse [7]
Category: Smallville
Genre: Drama, Gen, POV Outsider
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-25
Updated: 2016-03-25
Packaged: 2018-05-29 01:58:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6354280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rednihilist/pseuds/rednihilist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tom keeps hoping he'll wake up and it'll be Sunday, so he can go and save his little brother.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Iconoclasm

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: No profit is made or infringement intended, only enjoyment.
> 
> A/N: Spring Cleaning. Tom Aerson is a minor character in Can't Find My Way Home & a great outsider perspective.

He woke up to his alarm, shut it off, got up without making the bed, went to the bathroom, came out 20 minutes later, put on that day's suit, picked up his watch, and that was when he first checked his phone. It'd been on silent: he'd forgotten to turn it back up after the movie last night. He flicked the volume up to medium and stood there in front of the dresser and mirror, still not really awake yet, swaying from foot to foot and slowly going through what he'd missed.  
  
Twenty-five new messages, ten of which were texts. Fifteen new voicemails. He frowned, confused, only worried, not scared, not yet. He went through the texts first, and after the fourth one he pushed 'End' and bent over, hands on his knees. He was going to throw up. He couldn't breathe, and his head was spinning.  
  
He then threw the potted plant on the windowsill across the room and spent awhile crying over it and trying in vain to put it all back together.  
  
(The funny thing is, the plant had been dying long before that. He'd always forgotten to water it regularly or turn it in the window so it received an even amount of sun. Throwing it, breaking its pot, stomping and crushing it beneath his feet, that had just been the death knell.  
  
There's a metaphor in there somewhere, their relationship, how he'd neglected his end of it, put things off, important things, emotional things he was too goddamned scared to say out loud, least of all to the little shithead who'd once memorably trashed his Captain America action figure by sticking it in the torchere in the living room, melting the hell out of it, and then having the balls to lie about it to his face, to Mom and Dad's faces.)  
  
That is what he remembers: guilt, trashed plant, sobbing, melted Captain America, lies lies lies. That's what goes through his head now when someone looks at him that pitying way or says his brother's name or even mentions the goddamned Luthors—guilt, weakness, ruined plastic hero, and all of it covered over with lies. Dead Chance. Murdered brother.  
  
He gets asked about it, what he remembers, what it felt like, how he heard the news broken, and he offers up everything but the guilt, the shame of being half-awake, wanting coffee or even Gayle's boring tea, wanting it to be Sunday again so he can sleep in, and then knowing his little brother is dead, had died last night while he'd been flirting and drunk and not thinking or having even thought about his brother in weeks.  
  
(Tom keeps hoping he'll wake up and it'll be Sunday, so he can go and save his little brother.)  
  
It's Monday. It's always fucking Monday. His whole life is a Monday.  
  
***  
  
Patience isn't a virtue in this profession; persistence is. Fortitude and a thick skin come in handy too though.  
  
Case in point.  
  
"This isn't news anymore, okay?" Graham is bitching at him. "Way past that. At this point it's a personal vendetta," and here he slaps down the newspaper, "and against the fucking Luthors. How long has this been going on now? Months! I can't have this. I cannot tolerate this kind of behavior!" He's shaking his head, has his hands up high like the police are already coming for him. "Not here. This is not journalism. We do not do this kind of reporting, Tom!"  
  
That's just one reason the guy's a poor reporter himself, more of a bureaucrat playacting. Graham's a coward and a hypocrite.  
  
"That's not what you said when I got that promotion last year," Tom reminds him. Graham narrows his eyes, but it's already too late. "I believe 'outstanding' and 'ballsy' were the words you used."  
  
"That was then," Graham snaps, "before you started this– this crusade against one of the most powerful families in the entire world and jeopardizing the careers and lives, Tom, of every single employee at this paper!"  
  
"So you're throwing me under the bus, is that it?"  
  
"You're goddamned right I am!" He's got this expression on his face like Tom's the one doing the firing and going back on his word. He has the nerve to look disappointed when this kind of doggedness is exactly what he'd only just last week patted Tom on the back for and encouraged him to "keep up."  
  
But that had been an entirely different subject matter. No Luthors in those articles, not nearly as much controversy, and nowhere near the risk in printing those pieces.  
  
Running scared.  
  
Of course, this axing isn't awful enough, doesn't sting nearly as much as it can apparently because that's when the elephant in the room is brought up.  
  
"Look, I know your brothe– " Graham starts, and as soon as he hears the first word Tom knows what's coming and stands up from the chair. He reaches down and grabs his bag, slings it around his head and across his chest. His keys jangle in the front pocket, and he forces a mean smile onto his face as he meets Graham's eyes.  
  
"Don't worry about it," he tells his now former employer, cutting him off before he can extend some truly trite condolences and make this whole process even more absurd. "I think everyone's better off this way. Personally, I can't wait to see the reaction to the fact you're firing me just when I'm on the verge of exposing what is arguably the biggest scandal this city's ever seen. Enjoy your job while you have it, Graham." Tom grins as his stomach rapidly flip-flops and his sweaty palms repeatedly slide on the strap of his bag. He then turns and leaves the office, making his way across the bullpen to the bank of elevators with his head held ridiculously high and not a single misstep in his stride. He doesn't meet anyone's eyes, simply stares straight ahead. This is his grand exit, and he's going to make the most of it.  
  
The right-most elevator opens with a melodic ding, and, smiling in the face of the sneers, the catty remarks, the almost palpable wave of schadenfreude cresting across the floor on which he's spent the last six years slaving away and in the building and the paper he's wanted to work for since he was eight, Tom shouts as he backs into the elevator, "I've decided on a title already. _Capital Iconoclast_ should hit the bookshelves sometime next year. The dedication will read 'Fuck you, Daily Planet piranhas!'"  
  
He looks out at a group of people so horrid that being in the room with them is nearly a daily existential crisis. Graham's hovering in his doorway, and even the interns scattered about the place have stopped their never-ending gophering, standing at a loss with their mouths hanging open, perhaps justifiably terrified they're witnessing their own future.  
  
"The pleasure, I'm sure," Tom says as the elevator doors start sliding shut, "was all yours."  
  
The ride down is longer and more illustrious than his whole career. It's a good thing he's not particularly attached to things like food, water, or shelter because by the end of the month he'll be out on his ass without a penny to show for years and years of hard work.  
  
He's got a month, maybe two if his friends are feeling generous with their wallets or couches, maybe three if his folks are still kind of out of it or don't notice him taking up prolonged residence in their guest room.  
  
That persistence of his should really come in handy now that it's dug him into a giant hole. Now he's working on a deadline and with no real backing or support system to speak of while he singlehandedly attempts to go up against the juggernaut that is the Luthor family.  
  
***  
  
Initially it's not slow going, which is the problem. He's already established leads and made contact with several of the important individuals by the first week. He's on a veritable roll, and then abruptly the well just dries up, and all his information is countered, denied, proved false, and then Tom is back at square one, only without even hope this time. If it had been tough to start out with, he might not have got his hopes up so high.  
  
No one immediately in the Family will talk, but he'd expected that, anticipated having to go the extra mile or three. What surprises him though is that after that first phone call when nearly every person he talked to agreed to a sit-down with him, suddenly anyone even marginally connected to the Family or either of the two closed cases surrounding it or involved in any way in what happened to Chance—just. Shuts. Down. No pat excuses, no uncertainty, not even any attempts at bribery, just good ol' cold shoulder and flat refusal. They are, none of them, talking, at least not to Tom.  
  
He's pretty sure who they did talk to at one point though—someone working for that damn Family or maybe even one of the big name assholes himself. One night, eight days into his investigation post-pink slip, Tom's sitting in his miniscule living room with a bottle of bourbon. He's on his couch, his lush leather sofa that he's already sold and is being picked up tomorrow, and spread out across his coffee table are various photos and clippings of some of the Luthor estates. Estates, plural, and there are mazes and stables and three different pools in every place and formal dining rooms and atriums and elaborate home theaters with cutting edge technology, and then next to him on the sofa are pictures of the Luthors themselves.  
  
He's buzzed and really hungry because he wasted his food money for the week on gas for a four-hour roundtrip drive, only to be turned away at the door with the enigmatic justification, "We're done with that now for good!" So he's furious and intoxicated and bordering on utterly discouraged as he studies the wealth and excess of this family that without a doubt is the cause of his brother's death, and yet the only thing Tom is really processing at the moment is the look on that kid's face in the fancy yearbook picture from the fancy prep school just outside the city limits.  
  
He takes another swallow, and his eyes actually tear up a little, and Tom knows everything would be so much simpler if they were all just evil, manipulating bastards, but they're not. They are manipulating; that's for sure. Not evil though, at least the younger two aren't. And honestly he doesn't think the others are either. Businessmen likely, politely ruthless and thorough, but they don't look like murderers or sociopaths. The kids in the Excelsior yearbooks, they look skinny and brittle and pathetic—sad. Tom thumbs through those pictures, and he feels a greater urge towards validation than condemnation. And it sickens him.  
  
These kids are the reason Chance is dead, and they're not even really kids anymore. The youngest one is, but Tom's not stupid enough to think that one had anything to do with—well, with anything that had happened. The youngest, Julian, wasn't even in the city, still living with Wayne in Gotham. Tom couldn't figure out who exactly had guardianship of the boy, but it likely didn't matter. He was out of the picture now, if he'd ever actually been in it to begin with. And while Tom had his suspicions about Wayne, his gut said that wasn't the right angle either.  
  
He liked the oldest for this, good ol' Lex Luthor, the guy who'd secured more than a few tabloid writers' jobs over the years. Bossy, that one, and in live interviews he sometimes got this look on his face, a twinkle or spark in his eye, and Tom hadn't ever met the guy or even been in the same room with him, but he knew what to look for, and Lex Luthor was it.  
  
He just couldn't prove it, and what's more Tom couldn't understand the reasoning behind any of it. Why Chance? What had happened to make him a threat? Kid had never hurt a soul, was just a giant, pathetic pushover. No drugs, not that Tom had been able to find, and he'd really been looking. Chance's friends, his exes, the people at the restaurant he'd been waiting tables at, none of them were anything but wholly skeptical when Tom brought up that possibility. Even the couple of guys who'd seemed jealous or unfriendly hadn't taken that position. Called Chance a know-it-all, which was completely true, and said he was losing the place money and in a way stealing by continually giving people food and stuff for free, which also sounded likely given the fact that Chance was a fucking do-gooder and never knew when to quit, never could manage to look out for himself worth half a damn. Countless times he'd had to help that dick move because Chance had given someone a key to his place, which they then trashed and abandoned, robbing him blind and leaving Tom or their folks to pay for the damages because Chance of course never made enough money. How many times had some lowlife talked him into doing something illegal, something so ludicrous that anyone else would've laughed in their face and kicked them out but, oh, _not Chance_?  
  
"He doesn't know how to read people," one of the girls from the restaurant had said and then promptly grimaced, correcting herself with a misty-eyed look at Tom. "Didn't," she said, softly, "he, uh– he didn't have very good– wasn't a good judge of character. Sorry."  
  
"No worries," Tom had said back. "Thanks for talking to me."  
  
"Just awful," she'd murmured, stepping back and nodding. "He was the nicest guy around. Figures something bad would happen."  
  
Something bad was always happening to Chance. It was a running gag in the family, not just with Tom and Mom and Dad but with the uncles, aunts, cousins, friends too. Everyone smiled sympathetically but fondly over Chance. Chance never finished anything, and Chance never did anything. It was always someone else. Kid had bad luck and bad taste and too big a heart and no goddamn common sense.  
  
And maybe it had got him killed. Maybe he'd stumbled into something worse than anything else he'd happened on before. Maybe, and this was what Tom had been thinking ever since the funeral, ever since the fucking lilies were delivered, with that fucking sympathy card attached, and all their names oh-so-elegantly written on there—maybe Chance had finally truly hit the trifecta of shit, had helped the wrong people in the wrong way at the wrong time.  
  
Luthors and Wayne and whatever that other kid's name was—Dunleavy, all of them, and if they didn't all know what had happened to Chance, then they damn sure knew who did. And they didn't say a fucking word. Tom and his folks weren't good enough maybe; the Aersons weren't hoity-toity billionaires, weren't part of the upper social strata, the top tier of bullshit like the Luthors or Waynes or Queens of the country. Aersons weren't famous or rich, weren't geniuses or innovators. Tom himself and his second cousin Cheryl were about the cream of the distinguished crop in that regard. He was now out of a job, and last he'd heard Cheryl was getting divorced and her startup company wasn't expanding as well as expected.  
  
So they sent a card and some expensive flowers and called it square.  
  
_Our sincerest condolences for your loss._  
Chance will be greatly missed.  
—Alexander, Colin, and Julian Luthor, and Lucas Dunleavy.  
  
What are they supposed to do with that? It's worse than no acknowledgement at all. It's the equivalent of winking. Mock-pity is what they got after Chance's body was found floating in the river, his throat gaping open and heavy bruising on his wrists and ankles. Tom hadn't expected a visit, honestly not even a phone call, but something more than that crass fucking card with two lines of stock commiseration would have been nice. How about a letter? Even a postcard would have been better.  
  
Use 'em and lose 'em, though. There's a history of Luthor men making friends and then letting them take the fall while getting off scot-free. Luthor Senior did it with his crime boss buddies, his peons who were mysteriously canned and then never heard from again, his string of redheaded mistresses and tall, dark men, all there for weeks and then gone in a flash, ruined by association. Luthor Junior, Lex, has quite the sordid past himself—nightclub brawls, shootings, drug deals gone bad, and that's without any of the sex crap. Arrests for solicitation, public indecency, even a fucking prostitution charge when he was still a minor, and none of it ever stuck. None of it will ever fucking stick to any of them because they're Luthors. They're not bound by the same laws as everyone else.  
  
And Tom's pretty sure Chance was just caught in the crossfire between father and sons, highly doubtful he'd done anything truly terrible or even been asked to, but it's gone beyond just finding out the truth now, at least for him. His folks have given up, not that they ever really looked. They're stuck in a haze; Chance was always everybody's favorite. The rest of the family is sad of course, a bit morbidly curious, but it's not their kid, not their brother who's dead. And Chance did have bad judgment. . .  
  
It's more now though. It's not about what happened but _why_. It's about accountability. Tom's not out for revenge, mainly because the man most likely directly responsible died shortly after Chance did. No, Tom needs an answer, a reaction, something more personal than a note and a restraining order. He is demanding an audience with the King, and he's fighting his way to it. He'll ruin them if he has to. They brought it to this point. They have secrets they've buried, and he's digging them up. They have people they love, and he'll find them and ask _them_ if he has to. He's done for in terms of career and reputation. He's a disgrace to the profession. Gayle says she doesn't even know who he is anymore. He's too angry, his folks say, has taken this too far. He's got no money, no prospects beyond fucking food service or sanitation, and there's no one on his side, no one who'll listen, no one in the country, the region, the entire city who can even be bothered to pretend to care that Chance Aerson was murdered by these people, these Luthors, and they will never be held accountable for it. They probably don't even remember it, don't remember him.  
  
So he'll be the enemy, the antagonist. He'll keep fucking asking until he gets an answer.  
  
Doesn't mean he enjoys it. Doesn't mean he looks at those yearbook pictures with anything other than sympathy. They had to get away; they had to.  
  
And Chance died to help them, and now it doesn't even matter. Chance's whole life: a means for someone else.  
  
***  
  
"I don't think you're allowed to ask that," Gayle offers, dubiously. She's messing with her napkin again, not ripping or tearing but folding and refolding. It's like watching someone attempt to self-teach themselves origami. Right now, she's at triangular football stage. "That's illegal, right?"  
  
Tom shrugs, smirks, and sets his coffee back down on the table. "Depends on the circumstances, I imagine," he retorts.  
  
Ok, she's not falling for it, not based on the look on her face right now, but then he hadn't really expected her to either—would've been disappointed if she had.  
  
Gayle heaves a huge sigh and drops the napkin configuration. She looks Tom square in the eyes and says point-blank, "I can't do this." He must make a face in response because she shakes her head and adds, "You know what I mean. Don't play that game with me, Tom."  
  
He turns his head and looks out the window to his left. It's another windy day in the city, not especially cold but unpleasant. A woman stumbles in the street when her hair whips into her face, and a car stops short to avoid hitting her. There's a resultant honk from the horn, but the sound of it is muted by the noise inside the coffee shop and the twin obstacles of distance and barrier. The glass, the brick, the physical space separating him from the near-accident suddenly seems in that moment insurmountable.  
  
Another metaphor. They're everywhere these days.  
  
"Honestly," Gayle says quietly, and Tom tilts his head in an effort to hear her over the usual racket of this place at ten in the morning on a Saturday, "I don't know what to do here."  
  
"What do you mean?" Tom asks. He keeps his eyes on the window and off Gayle. The female pedestrian safely makes it to the sidewalk, stumbling on high heels and trying to collect her wayward hair, while, passing by, the driver throws an angry arm out the window and honest to God shakes a fist at the unlucky woman. Must be a man. A woman would've flipped her off. "Out of practice," Tom says, "since your last break-up?"  
  
He immediately regrets saying it but can't change the feeling behind it. At least he's being honest, right?  
  
Dead wrong. And he fucking well knows it.  
  
"Fuck you," Gayle says, and it's not snapped out or furiously hissed across the table. She drawls the two words, stretches them out, and it's low in pitch but not volume. "Wake up, Tom."  
  
The last part startles him, confuses him, so he turns back to look at her, and her eyes are wet, but her lips are thin and her jaw set hard. Pity, sympathy—but empathy too, a delicate balance Gayle easily pulls off just like she pulls off everything.  
  
Tom looks down at the table, picks up his coffee cup but can't stomach taking another drink. His face is moving, contorting, and it feels like he doesn't have any control. He presses his lips together then bites the inside of his mouth. He narrows his eyes and blinks rapidly, consciously smoothes out his face before inevitably frowning again.  
  
"You mean give up," Tom responds, and Gayle sighs again.  
  
"No," and now she's angry, the word spit out fast like a punch, "I mean stop doing it wrong. Stop– stop harassing these people! You're mad they won't answer your questions," Gayle tells him, and he meets her eyes again, "but you never asked them, did you?"  
  
"Bullshit," he returns, putting his elbows on the table and leaning closer to her. "All I did was ask! That's what every single article was!"  
  
Gayle shakes her head, picks up the napkin again. "You went straight to vinegar, and I know why, ok?" she rushes out, cutting off his response. "But– but these are still people we're talking about, and normal people, Tom," and here one of her hands moves to his elbow, "don't respond well to threats and accusations and all of their—really messed up history being printed in newspapers and blasted on TV. That's _normal_. And this is the _Luthor_ family."  
  
"There was no other way to do it!" he answers, and it's one step down from a shout. "I had to get their attention somehow, didn't I? You think there's some number I could've called and just set up a meeting? I couldn't even get a straight answer out of the police, and this is their job!"  
  
Gayle's taken back her hand from his elbow, but she's also dropped the napkin again. She's frowning, which means she's still not convinced, and Tom is fast coming to the conclusion that this is an exercise in futility on both their parts. He won't be dissuaded, and she isn't ever hesitant in voicing her opinion. It's a big reason he likes her so much, but she's a real pain in the ass sometimes too. Tom's stubborn, and Gayle's blunt to the point of rude.  
  
"I told you after the first article you were making a mistake," Gayle says, "and now it's blown up in your face, and still— _still_ you're too damn proud to admit maybe, just maybe, you might've screwed up."  
  
" 'I told you so'?" Tom asks, dumbfounded. "Is that what this is? You finally agree to meet me after two weeks of nothing, and what I get is 'I fucking told you so'!"  
  
"I can't keep watching you do this," is her answer, and her voice is so strained it's painful to hear. Gayle makes another attempt to reach out and touch Tom's arm or hand, but he pulls back. He doesn't even know why he does it. Now, hurt and angry, she brings her arms back and crosses them defensively over her chest. "You've thrown your career away, and don't think I don't know that you're almost broke. And, why? And it's not just Chance," she says, again interrupting what he'd been about to say. "Don't feed me that line. I read those articles, every one, and this is– "  
  
"I don't care," Tom tells her, cutting her off. "The money, the reputation, all the stuff I had—it doesn't even matter now. This is what I'm doing," and when he jabs his finger onto the table, it rocks and their cups clink a little. Gayle gets a look on her face, equal parts suspicious and worried, and Tom actually smiles in response. "A cause, isn't that what you were always teasing me about? I had no long term goals, you said. Some might say I was just in it for the name recognition. . . "  
  
"Well, your name is sure out there now!" she retorts, but it's soft, bittersweet, sadly amused.  
  
"So is theirs."  
  
Gayle looks him in the eyes, and she says what she's thinking, and it's one reason he really likes her—but she does make him feel like a fool sometimes.  
  
"But not," she tells him, "Chance's." A few seconds pass, and it's like his lungs have contracted and his heart's stopped. "You made this about them and you," Gayle adds carefully, "but I– I don't see his name anywhere. I just– Tom," and she stretches out her hand across the table, reaching for him, wanting to touch him, "I don't know if you're doing this for the right reasons."  
  
He brings up his hand and grabs hers gently. "I don't know, either," he says, "but I can't give up. I have to know why." They're silent for a few seconds, and then he tells her, "They can't just get away with this."  
  
"Then quit talking," she tells him, squeezing his hand hard, "and ask. Stop and listen for once." Another squeeze. "You're so fucking pushy."


End file.
